What a topic - it is amazing and polarizing at the same time. Amazing because of the implications and polarizing because of individual opinions held by those who have read it. The real issue is not about the plausibility of the Son of God resurrecting from the dead, but in the truth of the Bible in general. If you hold that the Bible is absolute fact then it is no stretch of the imagination to believe in the bodily Resurrection of the Christ, but if the Bible is held in even the slightest uncertainty in your thinking then this, the greatest of the Bible stories, is shrouded by a cloud of doubt. So the question is not, "Did the Resurrection actually take place?", but "Is the Bible reliable?"
Three complaints generally surface when speaking with those who have questions about the validity of scripture. 1. The Bible is antiquated - too old to be relevant, God should send new revelation to our generation. 2. The archaeological record is not consistent with the what Scripture records. 3. The Bible is full of contradictions.
Fortunately for me there are ample reasons to believe the Bible is reliable. 1. The Historicity of the Bible - more manuscripts and ancient writings on this book than any other. In eastern and western texts the Bible is still 99% textually pure with the others being copy errors and misspellings. Yes there are a few parts of scripture that have come under serious question in recent decades, but all in all the text itself has for thousands of years remained remarkably pure. No matter what you believe you must admit the uniqueness of the text.
2. The longevity of scripture - It is the anvil that has worn out many a hammer. Just the fact it has stayed around when so many have tried to burn it, regulate it, or deny it right out of existence must say something.
3. The archaeological evidence in support of scripture. Read any reputable author on the subject, check numerous web sights, the evidence is mounting rapidly. The more anti-Bible archaeologists claim that certain evidence does not exist, and then poof somebody finds more stuff to validate scripture (see Hittite empire, throne of David, walls of Jericho).
Point is if the Bible is accurate then the Resurrection is a reality and there just may be a thread of hope for the world we live in. If the Bible is really a book of fairy tales then the Resurrection is just another one of those tales and life ends at the grave. We can quibble about all the details, and don't get me wrong I enjoy that as much as the next guy, but the reality of the Resurrection is a hope all should be able to embrace in faith.
It really all comes down to faith doesn't it - a monumental leap to believe in the fantastic account of scripture, or the equally gigantic choice not to believe. One of the saddest things I have ever read was in C.S. Lewis' book The Last Battle, Peter is speaking towards the close of the life of Narnia, all the Kings and Queens are present for the event. All except Susan, when questioned why she was not present Peter explains that she is, "no longer a friend of Narnia". Susan had no doubt grown up, got educated, and realized it was the cool thing to do to live without faith. Go figure that same thing happens right here on good old planet Earth. Later - RLR
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You are right to identify the root (or at least one of the main roots) of doubt about the Resurrection as doubt about the reliability of Scripture. I would caution you, though, to not present it in such an either-or manner. You seem to say that on the one hand we have those who believe "the Bible is absolute fact" and on the other there are those who believe "the Bible is really a book of fairy tales." While you might just be engaging in polemical hyperbole here, there is a much broader spectrum than that. I believe in the Resurrection, for example, but I would want to know what you mean by the Bible being absolute fact. I would say you can't simply make broad statements like that about a book (a library, really) as diverse as the Bible. You have historical narratives, poetry, apocalyptic literature, allegories, etc. I don't know what it means to say they are all factual. For example, the creation story in Gen 1 was never, I believe, intended to be read as actual historical events. There is such clear parallelism there that it seems obvious that it is meant as poetry. There is also a clear polemical purpose. So it's not "fact" as in "this is the way it happened," but it is true and inspired.
Internal evidence would be the deciding factor, I obviously take a literalist stand on Scripture, but where the inferences are obvious allegory or poetry then they should be interpreted so. I guess the cross up in communication is with the words true/fact - bottom line the Bible is a book of principals and those principals are true. The details are up for debate. For example I believe Jesus parables are true while obviously not even inferred by the Lord to be factual, but the truth contained their in is still relevant millennia later. So can we compromise on the term "absolute truth"?
Yeah, I think "absolute truth" is a better term. Like you said, we still might disagree on how that would be applied to various texts, but it is a more workable term. The biggest problem, as you know, in all discussions of this kind is agreeing on what words mean.
Your were baiting me with the creation segment of your response - I do still hold to the tenants of a literal creation. Although the 7 literal days have come into question in my thinking, I still believe the account in Gen. is similar to the actual events as best as they could be described by the revelation to the author. Unfortuantly I was not present when this occured (would have been cool to be there though) and I can not reproduce it with the scientifuc method so this is simply another issue that can not be adequatly resolved without some measure of faih. Scientists on every side of this argument scream from the housetops that they have all the answers, which begs the observation, "someone must be wrong". Since I don't have all the answers I think I'll just plug my ears, close my eyes, scream at the top of my lungs about how right I am and how wrong everybody else is. Sound fair?
Well, I wasn't exactly baiting you. I was using the creation stories because they represent a well-known example of just this sort of question. It was on those texts that many of the beliefs I have come to regarding the Bible were hammered out.
I will say, though, that I expected you to argue more than you did. You're being quite magnanimous about all this. Quite an even tempered fellow, huh?
This is how I see it, I could give credible evidence concerning the Gen. 1 account of creation such as the fact that the rest of the historical books are narrative histories, hence the name, and not often do we find authors switch from an allegorical or poetical genre to a historical in mid book or group of books. Also I could cite that it seems the N.T. authors accept the creation account when referring back to it in a historical or devotional context. Furthermore I could argue all the relevant proofs for a young earth concerning the fossil record and the 2nd law of Thermodynamics, but we both know we're pretty firm in our positions and debate would be superficial at best.
Jable - question for a new post. What is your opinion on the Pentateuch in general, I'm doing a study on the tabernacle currently that is partially spawned from the comments on this post - I am seeing more of the symbolic nature of the Historical books as opposed to a purely historical aspect. You may remember I have a great dislike for "types and shadows" but in my mellow older years I am becoming more agreeable to this line of thinking. Let me know what you think.
My default position is to believe the historical books to be historical unless proven otherwise. While I know very little about any recent scholarship on those books, I have heard a couple of people talk about the actual historical origins of Israel (specifically the exodus): some of it may be historical, some of it may be retrofitted to illustrate their character as a nation of promise. Some of the stories were borrowed from other cultures and adapted to their own, monotheistic use (Genesis 1-11 being a prime example). So that's my rather muddled, half-informed opinion on the first five books.
My problem with "types and shadows" thinking is that it damages the organic wholeness of Scripture. It is essential to see the story of Jesus as the culmination of the story of Israel (see N.T. Wright for more on this), not, as Joey Hight used to say, an after-market add-on. The NT writers drew on OT themes and images to explain what they experienced with Jesus. Jesus himself would have been immersed in the same OT and used it throughout his life. "Types and shadows" thinking seems to me to deny that the OT and the Gospels form a united narrative of salvation where the story of Jesus forms the climax of all that was done in the OT. For them the OT becomes a mine of metaphors and symbols rather than the first acts of a play. In short, "types and shadows" folks are right to link the OT to the NT but wrong in that they seem to miss the bigger picture.
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